A year’s supply of commercial survival food can cost thousands of dollars for a single person. Now add up all the members in your family, and most people would be hard-pressed to find that kind of money just lying around the house.
Time and time again, I have readers emailing me in a panic over these issues. For some, it’s actually the one thing that prevents them from getting started in the first place.
You really don’t need commercial survival food to be prepared. In fact, you can find everything you need at your local supermarket or grocery store (if you know what to look for.)
- Look for foods that have a long shelf life.
- Look for foods that you normally eat, and buy a couple extra every time you go to the store. (A survival situation isn’t the best time to be experimenting with new foods.)
- Stock up around the holidays. Holidays can be a great time to score some prepping deals. If you have an extra freezer, you can sometimes pick up things like 20lb turkeys for under $5. For around $100, you can stock your freezer with enough meat to help you make it through the year. Just think of what a help that would be during a crisis like a job loss or a temporary reduction in income.
- Bulk beans and rice – Believe it or not, you can sustain yourself for a very long period of time on little more than beans and rice. For under a hundred dollars, you can build up a decent size stockpile that will last for a while.
Having food in a survival situation means learning how to be self-sufficient.
Another part of this whole emergency food equation means learning how to find, capture, and cook wild foods. From knowing how to find the wild edibles in your area to learning how to hunt and fish, you need to have multiple ways of providing for your family during an emergency.
Hunting: At a minimum, I would suggest buying a .22 rifle. They’re inexpensive, and you can stockpile a very large amount of ammo without breaking the bank. Buy one now, learn how to use it, and be confident in the fact that during an emergency you can provide for your family.
Fishing: If you live anywhere near water you should have a fishing pole and a basic tackle box. For under $50 you can buy enough gear to feed your family indefinitely.
I am surprised I have not seen mention of getting a good bow and some arrows. You can only use a bullet once but you can clean and reuse an arrow and if need be you can make arrows and they don’t make any loud noises to alert others of where you are. The last thing you want is for people to know you are prepared because people will do anything when they are hungry and scared, not to say don’t help others but just be careful when you do.
I have picked up a compound bow and a compound crossbow and a few arrows. I also picked up crossbow pistols. I will start us off practicing with some of these soon. I have picked up a few hunting arrow heads but need to pick up and learn how to make some arrows too.
Sara from RI,
I’m lucky to live in MO away from cities, but I feel your concern. Though you have limited space, you do have options. Do you have old phone books or the like that you can put under each leg of your bed? Put low profile storage containers or food service size cans there or whatever else you can think of. End tables? Have a yard sale! Get rid of them & make some extra cash, then get some buckets or solid boxes for storage & throw some table clothes over them. Who needs to know what your tables are made of? Or what’s under your bed? Granted it probably won’t hold as much as you’d like, but hey, when it’s limited, do what you can! Hope it helps! Get inventive! God bless & good luck!
Some very good ideas about the tables and putting bed up on blocks too.
Another good survival skill is knowing what’s available in your area as good foraged. wild foods are available even in the desert if you know what to look for and where to find it. Seeds, nuts, green leafy plants, roots and more are widely available resource. Mushrooms are another option but you need training to be able to identify wild foods or you might end up severly sick, or worse. Start learning now and you wont be starving when your stash runs out!
Be sure to read up on aquaponics. Aquaponics is where fish and vegetables live in a symbiotic closed ecosystem. It takes 1/10th the water to grow plants from the fish water and the plants provide the fish the filtration necessary to keep their water clean. The system provides you with fresh veges and fish. Worst part is feeding all those fish, but you can add worms to the ecosystem to minimize the cost gap. It can be done on little or no electricity. It’s a beautiful system.
Interesting thoughts, I for one can kill an air fern and my area in NC is not real conducive to gardens, too much shade. Was wondering if the freezer is full of a years supply of meat, what happens when the power goes? This happen to me, we had a great barbeque. Dried foods would probably be better. Need to learn how to start fires without matches and other modern devices as they wear out. So if you are roughing it for a couple of weeks need to use what is at hand. Might take a look at “Living History” re-enactors, they, at least when I started, do not use anything that was not available prior to 1840. Just a thought.
It’s kinda stupid to tell people to stock their freezer if there is a collapse bc if the economy fails , that means the shelves will be bare bc the trucks stop shipping, bc the dollar will have no value which means no money -no electrical grids will function for free which means no electricity to run those freezers, which means all that food you spent your money and on – preparing for will be ruined. AND it will be more like 6 + months of collapse. If u plan for just 3 months and it turns out longer, you’d still be up a creek without a paddle. Get really real. Just try out those rations( mres)like the militery does and have been for yearslet your system get use to it now and see which one works best BEFORE that time comes…..
tell me lisa what would be wrong with freeze dried foods been thinging about it for a while on doing my own ,so how would long term be bad just asking.
SORRY: Thinking not thinging lol
one thing to keep in mind if and when shtf and survivable is a must their will be lot of people trying to find food and hunting, that when the country and off grid folks will be faced with unexpected guest of all type, its hard to say how things will turn out some good some bad .
everyone is reading survival in the wilderness article , so the country side will get flooded with hunters of all calibers, I can only hope we come together and help others and greed does not set in it will be hard times and really sad because it is all avoidable if our government would get there head out of there as; wishing everyone the best
In the early 70’s I felt the Lord was telling me to learn all kinds of ways to preserve food items. We had a garden and still garden every year. At present I am only canning and freezing but have dried fruit items and am thinking about doing some of that again. We do not care for wild meats but if we were hungry that would change. Be sure to follow directions on the various methods of food saving and even if you do not know much about it the key is to “just start” and you will learn as you go.
Gardening is hard to do with out a water supply. Also…better be thinking about those nuclear reactors which needs water also.
When this bubble burst that President Elect Donald Trump spoke about it will be bad,worse than the last one where people lost their homes. I say stock up, do the best you can and get as much protection as you can from the elements. Food and water are number one.